SHORT FICTION AND SHOUT-OUT TO AMAZING WRITERS

Somewhere near Madrid, Spain-

She looked at people that crisscrossed her throughout the streets. Sea of people. Random people. Who is probably crossing her for the first and the last time? For a split second, you see their faces, never ever to meet again. And if you meet, would you remember you have met before? Our mind is capable of so many things, but it cannot store the faces of persons that we see every day. Can it?

Today she felt a bit different. The people she saw, she tried to dig deep into their faces. She tried to feel…

LITERARY IMPULSE DAY 6 PROMPT: KINTSUGI

And thus, his lilting poetic verses,
did act as a kintsugi,
for her fragmented heart.

Kimo poems are an Israeli version of haiku. Apparently, there was a need for more syllables in Hebrew. That said, most of the rules are still familiar:

• 3 lines.
• No rhymes.
• 10 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, and 6 in the third.

This piece is in response to our National Poetry Month Event that has just begun. Please navigate to the below link and participate; we have some amazing prompts coming up in the course of this month!

Also, I would…

LITERARY IMPULSE DAY 5 PROMPT: RECURRING DREAM

I have a recurring dream, of cycling around my hometown,
meandering through nooks and crannies,
that still smell of that first love, of the following heartbreak,
of those bouts of echoing laughter, all bottled up, as if waiting for me,
to come cycling in, albeit via a dream, and out shall it burst,
spreading like dewdrops on the grass tips.

I have this recurring dream where I keep cycling on and on, reminiscing about those days of yesteryear, of promises kept and broken, of that smile near the school gate, does that still draw me near, or it is just…

FREE VERSE

What are you searching for, oh wanderer,
do you seek the address, the address to your home,
that home of your soul, where you floated paper boats,
where you did fly paper planes, aplenty?

As you sing through the streets,
engulfed in a vast array of cacophonic sounds,
your Sufi voice, quenching the thirst of so many ears,
but, but whose face douses your yearning,
whose eyes, hushes your eternal longing?

Does your nose, in a sea of people, feel that gentle smell of a mother’s hand, that lulled you to sleep? as your eyes keep searching for that patch…

A SHORT FICTION AND LI WEEKLY EDITORIAL

Antariksh’s stare moved towards the sky. Bestowed with millions of shining stars, the sky seemed pretty, as if emitting small shining balls of light, in between the darkness. The darkness, which would have had otherwise engulfed the whole sky into a permanent state of nothingness, into some eerie sense of blankness, as if nothing else exists, ever. He noticed a star, twinkling. What was it, he wondered. Why did it twinkle? His six-year-old brain could not decipher the reason behind that. …

FREE VERSE

That ominous background music, the revelation,
everyone gasping for their breath, eyes stuck to the screen,
the heartbeats pounding, increasing, beating the skeleton,
as the scientist’s clone wreaked havoc through the city,
uncontrollable, destructive.

That soft piano punctuated by the sound of the flute,
did a teardrop manage to blur the audience’s vision?
that uncomfortable tingling inside the throat,
a relatable sad mixed feeling engulfing their senses,
as a teary-eyed scientist ended the life of his clone,
that he had created for the betterment of civilization,
but alas!

This piece is in response to our National Poetry Month Event that…

FREE VERSE

The Thundercloud looked down, on the earth, sad earth,
the ground, all cracked open like the veins in your hands,
severe drought engulfing each and every organism.
It pained his heart, as his lips uttered a prayer,
hoping to see everything as it was, back during,
during those months of greenery, of monsoons,
and if at all anyone could do something now,
it had to be him.

The little bud looked up, as a ray of hope seemed to pass over; it kept looking at that charged cumulus towering in the sky, ready to start the orchestra of thunder and…

FREE VERSE

What am I? A sample of an original image?
part of those innumerable fragmental pieces,
pieces that constitute, combine to form the bigger picture,
that you all observe, you all feel, you all keep seeping in,
marveling at the grandeur, marveling at the depth,
but what lies below, are millions of us, twisting and turning, forming,
square (maybe not) fragments that come together,
small fragmental views, conspicuous if looked at closely, very closely,
small irrelevant but very relevant fragments that you call pixels.

This piece is in response to our National Poetry Month Event that has just begun, please navigate…